Theater review: Cleveland Play House's new 'A Carol for Cleveland' a holiday dud

By Bob Abelman

Tuesday, December 11, 2012

Most major cities regularly host world premiere productions of plays by their local artists. Such opportunities are somewhat limited in Cleveland. So when prominent local playwright Eric Coble adapts a novella by prominent local author Les Roberts and the Cleveland Play House stages its world premiere, it is something to get excited about.

Sadly, "A Carol for Cleveland" is a thoroughly disappointing play -- the theater equivalent of a holiday fruit cake. Though elaborately and lovingly concocted, chock-full of enticing home-grown ingredients, and a veritable feast for the eyes, it is saccharine sweet and damn near inconsumable.

"A Carol for Cleveland" transports us to the 1970s and introduces us to Ed Podolak, a laid-off steel mill worker who leaves his young family in Pennsylvania for the prospects of employment in Cleveland.

It is Christmas Eve and, after two years of futility, Ed finds himself alone at Public Square. Broke, dispirited and hallucinating from hunger and the cold, he engages in a selfish and immoral act of desperation. Thanks to a child's innocence, a stranger's acceptance and a family's faith, Ed's stomach is filled, his hope is restored, and the play achieves the predictable happy ending that was foreshadowed five minutes into the production.

The play's local focus is interesting, albeit contrived, but its story line is not completely original. After all, our hero's desperate act and subsequent salvation is not unlike "It's a Wonderful Life." His miraculous transformation after seeing visions is inspired by "A Christmas Carol." And it probably doesn't help matters that the actor playing Ed -- the wonderful Charles Kartali -- played the Old Man in the Cleveland Play House's long-running and nostalgic holiday favorite "A Christmas Story."

Paying homage to these classic works is one thing and is, perhaps, an unavoidable thing when devising a contemporary holiday play. But what plagues "A Carol for Cleveland" is its adoption and thick application of their hokey, dated sentimentality.

Seeing the modern-day world through Frank Capra colored glasses and hearing it over-described with Dickensian verbosity comes across as trite and disingenuous, as if penned by a second-tier American Greetings employee. This is particularly true for the maudlin narrative voice that runs throughout the play, which is provided by a very sincere and personable Stephen Spencer. His performance is remarkable, for it completely disguises his embarrassment.

Meanwhile, the assorted actors playing holiday shoppers and lovable family members are so slap-happy with holiday cheer that they are just asking for a slapping. When clustered together on stage they appear to be posing for a Currier and Ives lithograph.

Despite the cliché-drenched dialogue they are required to espouse, the actors portraying the family that saves Ed -- Robert Ellis, Lena Kaminsky and young Elliot Locksine -- come out relatively unscathed and with their dignity intact.

While the play itself is disappointing, the production of it is incongruously spectacular, courtesy of Antje Ellermann (set design), Paul Millar (lighting design), Sven Ortel (projection design) and Jane Shaw (sound design). The stage is miraculously transformed into a three-dimensional pop-up holiday card, layered with projections of Cleveland's snow-covered locales in the background, detailed and transportable set pieces at center stage, and assorted scene-appropriate furnishings in the foreground.

The lack of attention given to moderating the play's raging schmaltz has clearly been devoted to scene changes, which are fluidly choreographed by director Laura Kepley. One projection fades into the next, set pieces rotate to reveal a distinctively unique location, and furniture is quickly exchanged with remarkable stealth.

So enchanting are the projections of the sights of downtown Cleveland and the lights of Public Square that, when walking out of PlayhouseSquare's Allen Theatre and looking west on Euclid Avenue, one better appreciates the real thing.

Therein lies the true moral of this one-act, 90-minute no-thank you portion of theatrical holiday cheer: The best part of the evening is leaving the theater.

"A Carol for Cleveland" continues through Dec. 23 in Cleveland Play House's Allen Theater at PlayhouseSquare. For tickets, which range from $49 to $69, call 216-241-6000 or visit www.clevelandplayhouse.com.